Photos: Flash90

T

he IDF forces defending the Gaza border against incursions have been taunted by violent demonstrators with the age-old Muslim battle cry: “Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning.” It’s a reference to Muhammad’s brutal conquest of one of Medina’s Jewish communities more than 1,400 years ago.

It’s a battle cry with ongoing and deep significance, says Israel Shrenzel, a former chief analyst and researcher in the Shin Bet’s Arabic section.

“It fosters their motivation. The demonstrators can say, ‘We are part of Muslim history and we are following in our tradition,’ ” Shrenzel said at a lecture I attended last week at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Hearing Shrenzel’s talk on the founding principles of Islam was akin to stepping inside a time capsule, circa 610 to 632. That’s when Muhammad consolidated his authority over almost all ancient Arabia under the banner of a new religion — Islam. Muhammad also disrupted centuries of peaceful relations between local Jewish tribes and Arabs, conquering the Jewish tribes and confiscating much of their wealth.

Shrenzel also contrasted several verses from the Koran — some that are clearly anti-Jewish — with others that show at least a veneer of tolerance. Religious scholars and academics still hotly debate whether the Koran is an anti-Jewish tome and labor to reconcile its contradictory verses.

“This is still very important in our age,” Shrenzel says. “We need to know how Jews are perceived by Muslims, as presented in the Koran and the Hadith [Islam’s oral tradition].”

While Shrenzel agrees that the Koran’s anti-Jewish verses vastly outnumber the more open-minded ones, he contends a similar internal debate being encouraged in the Islamic world today bears watching.

In Egypt, President Abdel el-Sisi has called for a renewal of Islamic discourse, after having embraced the teachings of another Muhammad — Muhammad Abduh, Egypt’s grand mufti from 1899 to 1905. Abduh also lived in Paris and London for a short time. He is considered a modernist who insisted that Islam be respectful and tolerant of Jews and Christians. However, El-Sisi and the forces of modernity are still in the minority.

“It’s difficult to convince conservative clerics to take part in this; there is quite an opposition to this endeavor,” Shrenzel admits, “but El-Sisi has been in power for five years, and all the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood are in jail.”

The Muslim Brotherhood may have been sidelined, but the power brokers in Iran and Hezbollah — Shiite Muslims — have taken up their battle cry in the theological battles with their Sunni Muslim counterparts in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

“It’s an ongoing debate,” Shrenzel said. “This is a work in progress, but if I can end with a more optimistic, perhaps naive idea, the more moderate branch of Islam is not so small.”

Ramadan, the month in which devout Muslims fast, ends in the middle of next week. Trump administration officials have dropped some hints that might be an ideal time to release their long-awaited Middle East peace plan.

Details of the proposal are scant. The Trump administration seems to understand the geopolitical divisions in the Muslim world, yet it’s not clear that they totally grasp or have internalized the conflict’s many religious dimensions.

To the extent that the Trump administration still views Arab-Israel peace through the prism of a real estate deal, then even their well-intentioned efforts are doomed to failure like every other diplomatic plan presented to date. (Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 713)